How to prepare the store for Black Friday?

For successful sales on Black Friday in 2025, entrepreneurs should be proactive and work in advance. This year, Black Friday in Ukraine continues to move online, approaching Western scale. 

When is Black Friday in Ukraine?

Black Friday is traditionally the last Friday of November, which in 2025 falls on 28 November and usually starts at midnight.

How to prepare for Black Friday?

So that preparing the store for Black Friday does not turn into stress, and customers have the opportunity to start looking for good deals in advance, start getting ready for this event now. Since people tune in to sales at the beginning of November, entrepreneurs should get involved as early as possible.

Preparing the store assortment

Black Friday trends in recent years have changed: given the realities of war, during the sales period customers pay attention to power banks, power stations, batteries, warm practical clothing, winter tactical footwear and clothing for the military, kitchen utensils, flashlights, electronics. Household appliances, home goods and clothing also remain relevant.  

But if your products are from another segment, statistics should not stop you. There is always a buyer for every product. Especially if you offer real discounts on Black Friday. The most profitable purchases are those that the customer really needs: not everyone needs a new smartphone, someone already bought a power bank last year, someone wants to buy a Moleskine notebook, an orthopedic mattress or a drill. That is, there can be demand for almost anything. 

Analyze the sales results for this period in previous years in your store or in competitors' stores. Determine which products sold better and which worse. 

However, customer habits before major sales can change, and what was relevant a year ago may no longer be so. Therefore, set aside time to research the market and demand. Look at what is being sold on Rozetka, Prom.ua. Black Friday on large marketplaces – is a good sales model that you can borrow for yourself. Statistics from well-known retailers can be useful. 

Keep in mind that big discounts on irrelevant goods may not work (for example, swimsuits with an 80% discount). To avoid disappointing customers while still remaining profitable, make the discount smaller but on well-known brands with a high markup.

Negotiate with suppliers

Not every entrepreneur can immediately apply big discounts. Try to negotiate in advance with suppliers for a reduced purchase price on popular and fast-moving products in your assortment. This will be beneficial for both parties: the supplier will receive a large order, and the entrepreneur – more sales. Agree with suppliers on the possibility of fast delivery so as not to create an excess of goods in the warehouse in advance.

Divide goods into categories

Divide your goods into categories, for example, «for men», «for women», «for people with high income», «children's product group». It all depends on who comes to your store. 

For each group, estimate the acceptable discount percentage. The narrower the categories, the more interestingly you can manage discounts on Black Friday. For example, in a clothing store, Black Friday can be presented as: «Discounts on men's clothing», «Discounts on women's clothing», «Discounts for teenage girls 11–15 years old», «Discounts on sportswear», etc.

Bundles

If your promotion involves selling bundles, then the fast-sales period is an ideal time to sell goods in pairs. As a rule, a bundle consists of «fast-moving item + seasonal item» or «fast-moving item + slow-moving item or last season's item». In this way, the chance of freeing shelf space increases.

Checking stock balances in the warehouse

«Out of stock» is a very annoying factor for a client, especially during sales. Therefore, preferably already now, check the stock balances in the warehouse and in stores – and reorder those for which you plan to offer discounts. Usually, suppliers cooperate with many online stores or wholesalers, so take care of the availability of fast-moving goods in advance. 

So that the process of manual checking of warehouse stock and store inventory does not turn into a headache, it is worth using technological solutions such as automated accounting software.  

Launching promotions 

Black Friday and discounts: how to combine these two things? If no brilliant ideas come to mind, we have collected for you 30 of the most popular promotions for a store. Use both classic promotion options – discounts on the second or third item in the receipt, a gift with purchase, discounts from a certain amount – and more interesting offers.

However, remember that customers love real discounts on Black Friday, as well as simple and clear conditions. Try not to overcomplicate the wording and rules.

For example: «Exclusive sale in honor of Black Friday in Ukraine: come with a neighbor, dressed in black and with a tub of ice cream – get your 50%» – this is a very complicated wording: no one will go to fetch a neighbor or specially dress in black. In this way, you unintentionally reduce the number of receipts on sale days. 

Try not to deceive your customers by resorting to a common trick – increasing the price of goods during the month preceding sales. Perhaps customers will not notice this, but there will be a meticulous person who will track the price dynamics beforehand and may accuse your store of unfair pricing. 

Optimizing website performance

If you sell through an online store, make sure that it works properly so that at the time of maximum load the site does not “crash”. This will definitely affect sales volumes and conversion during the sale season. Slow page loading can seriously harm you. 

Also review the content on your resource. Check whether product descriptions are up to date, whether the key phrases in them are relevant, whether prices have been changed everywhere taking discounts into account.  Incorrect descriptions and price discrepancies on your online platforms are guaranteed to lead to customer dissatisfaction. 

It is important to update the terms of payment, shipping and returns so that they correspond to reality. Each stage of placing an order in an online store must be properly configured. 

How to attract customers' attention to the sale?

To promote the store on Black Friday, you will need marketing tools that work best in combination:

Contextual and Display Network advertising in Google for the store

Order setup of contextual advertising. If you have no experience in configuring advertising, it is better not to risk it: incorrect settings can «eat up» a lot of money; 100$ per click is not a joke but a real story from practice.
 
You should order advertising setup already now, because PPC specialists (pay-per-click specialists) need a lot of time to correctly select keywords, configure campaigns, and agree on nuances with the business owner.

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram

If you still do not have a business page on social networks – it's time to fix it.
Filling in information is intuitive, and the social network itself will prompt what else to tell about your store.
 
Social networks value regularity: try to post at least once every two or three days. And before Black Friday, warm up subscribers' interest by talking about upcoming discounts. Creative ideas are welcome! For example, several years ago the «220 volts» store, on the eve of sales, launched its sales department employee in the blog and social networks, who called herself Black Friday: the charming character ran accounts dedicated to Black Friday and talked about sales trends.

Advertising on Facebook and Instagram is handled by targeting specialists. If you plan to run advertising for a long time, it is better to contact professionals.
If you plan to promote your store only for the promotion period, 2–3 hours will be enough to figure out how to configure Facebook ads on your own.

Unlike Google, setting up advertising on Facebook is quite accessible: if you figured out how to create a business page, you will also be able to set up ads yourself. The main thing in advertising for Facebook and Instagram is high-quality images in 16:9, 1:1 and 9:16 formats for stories.

The advantage of social networks is that for relatively little money you get a significant audience reach: from hundreds to several thousand people per day.

Post stories on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

Stories are convenient for showing any product and talking about it from a practical point of view. There are several types of stories for promotion:

• live stream – real-time broadcast,
• stories or reels on Instagram – short videos from 5 to 60 seconds, in which you can show all the advantages of the product or create viral videos to attract customers' attention,
• on YouTube, the Shorts format also works well, especially if you have a technical product and you need to show it in action or provide instructions for use.   

The simplest way to attract attention to a promotion

Conduct a mass mailing to the client base. In the morning on the first day of sales, send SMS messages to customers. Remember that 1 SMS can be no longer than 70 characters when typed in Cyrillic or up to 160 characters in Latin. With the Torgsoft mass mailing tool and the TurboSMS service, you can send messages via SMS and Viber. 

In the morning on the last day of Black Friday, repeat the mailing with a message about the end of the promotion.

Place information about the store on Black Friday sale websites

Placing information on sale websites is usually paid.

Active Black Friday sale websites:

• blackfridays.com.ua
• black-friday.com.ua

Save in Torgsoft contacts of new customers who came to your store. At the same time, do not complicate the registration process: do not force customers to fill in full name, address, number of children and other information for the sake of a loyalty card, which you are unlikely to use. Offer the client at the checkout to register a virtual loyalty card in exchange for only a phone number and name – it's convenient, fast and will not create a queue at the checkout.

Store decoration 

The minimum necessary in an offline store is information at the checkout about the promotion and its terms. Also, immediately before the promotion and on Black Friday itself, you can print flyers and use promoter services. 

For an online store, for sales on marketplaces Prom.ua, Rozetka.ua order promotional banners that specify the terms of promotions and develop a bright visual. You can also place a timer on the site: «time left until Black Friday...»

Since Black Friday is a short-term promotion, you should not spend too much on decorations. One interesting but stylish idea can attract visitors' attention without significant expenses. The main thing is not to forget about the facade of the offline store or the homepage of the site.

Delivery of goods 

The eternal problem during holidays is prompt delivery of goods. Black Friday is a time of impulsive purchases, and customers want to receive their goods literally «today». If delivery is within the city, do not neglect couriers; their services are affordable, and the customer will be happy. 
 
At the same time, branches of Nova Poshta and Ukrposhta inevitably have queues for shipping and receiving parcels. This is a huge load on entrepreneurs and their employees, so prepare for a large number of orders in advance. Packaging goods is an important part of the life cycle of an online order, which goes through several stages before reaching the customer's hands. Therefore, the quality of packaging must be proper. 

Stock up on packaging, distribute responsibilities: there should be an employee responsible for the phone, online store and social networks who accepts orders. To avoid standing in line at the post office, configure the option to connect the Torgsoft program with Nova Poshta and Ukrposhta: pack, enter shipment parameters and recipient information, print waybills and send goods without leaving the store.

Training sales staff 

Inform them about Black Friday 2025 terms

Inform employees about when discounts will be valid on Black Friday and that the store will operate in an intensified mode so that during this period they do not plan days off or vacations. It may be worth increasing the number of temporary employees or hours of operation during the promotion period in the store.
 
A rule of good tone: salespeople must know the promotion terms and announce them before the customer pays. 

Reward for successful sales

You can motivate sales staff depending on agreements with employees and the size of your store. If you have several different departments, arrange a «competition» between them for a bonus. Set up an individual incentive for the amount of goods sold, a percentage for the sale of certain types of goods, or from the profit of the entire store as a whole. Create a visual sales plan for Black Friday.

In Torgsoft, material motivation is managed by the option «Payroll calculation for sales staff + motivation, penalties and incentives system». In the program, you can stimulate the activity of a particular employee or the efforts of the entire team.

Life after Black Friday 

After the end of the sale, you need to summarize the results: how did discounts work, what about investment in advertising, employees, promoters? Sales analysis will help you draw the right conclusions so that in the future the promotion period is more productive. With thoughtful analysis, Black Friday can become an excellent «rehearsal» for New Year sales. Torgsoft provides special modes for this – «Discount usage analysis» and «Sales analysis by product type».
 
To compensate for the decline in interest in the store after large discounts, focus on the updated assortment, complex promotions such as «Refer a friend», activities on social networks with photos or stories of customers with your product, expanding the number of subscribers and improving the operation of the online store.